Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/604

 GERONA

530

GERSON

phanes, Chronographia, A. M. 6056). To-day Germia is called Germa. It is a small village in the vilayet and caza of Angora, twenty-one miles south-east of Sivri-Hissar and twelve miles east of the ruins of Pessinus. The ancient baths and the ruins of the inn built by Justinian are still to be seen. Germia must not be confused with Germa, a suffragan see of Cyzicus in the province of the Hellespont, and later an autocephalous archdiocese.

GELaER, Ecthesis pseuda-Epiphann. n. 135; Idem, Georgii Cyprii descriplio orbis Romani (Leipzig, 1890), n. 149, p. 60; HiEROCLES, Sunecdemus, ed. Parthey. n. Ill; Lequien. Oriens Christ. (Paris. 1740). I, 767; Cltinet. La Turquie d' Asie (Paris, 1892), I, 288; Texier, L'Asie Mineure, 470 sqq.

S. Vailhe.

Gerona, Diocese of (Gerdndensis), in Catalonia, Spain, suffragan of Tarragona, is bounded on the north by the Pyrenees, on the south and east by the Mediterranean, and on the west by the dioceses of Barcelona and Vich. The district is mountainous, with forests of pine, oak, and chestnut, and numerous mineral springs. Several of the towns are manufac- turing centres, and the main railwa.y from France to Barcelona runs through the province, which possesses considerable commercial importance. Its coal mines are a source of wealth, but agriculture is not in a flour- ishing condition. The episcopal city of Gerona is the chief town of the province of the same name, and is situated at the confluence of the Ter and the Oiia. The ancient portion of the city with its once-formid- able fortifications stands on the steep hill of the Capu- chins, while the more modern section is in the plain and stretches beyond the river. The bastions of the walls which have withstood so many sieges are still to be seen.

Gerona is the ancient Gerunda, a city of the Ause- tani. It is said that Sts. Paul and James, on their ar- rival in Spain, first preached Christianity there, and tradition also has it that St. Maximus, a disciple of St. James, was the first bishop of the district. It is gen- erally held that the see was erected in 247. On IS June, 517, a synod was convened here, and attended by the Archbishop of Tarragona and six bishops. Canons were promulgated dealing with the recitation of the Divine Office, infant baptism, and the celibacy of the clergy. The cit.v has undergone twenty-five sieges and been captured .seven times. In the time of Charlemagne it was wrested temporarily from the Moors, who were driven out finally in 1015. It was besieged by the French imder Marshal Hocquisicourt in 1653, under Marshal Belief onds in 1684, and twice in 1694 under de Noailles. In May, 1S09, it was be- sieged by 35,000 French troops under Vergier, Au- gereau, and St. Cyr, and held out obstinately under the leadership of .\lvarez until disease and famine compelled it to capitulate, 12 December.

The ancient cathedral, which stood on the site of the present one, was used bj- the Moors as a mosque, and after their final expulsion was either entirely re- modelled or rebuilt. The present edifice is one of the noblest monuments of the school of the Majorcan architect, Jayme Fabre, and one of the finest speci- mens of Gothic architecture in Spain. It is ap- proached by eighty-six steps. An aisle and chapels surround the choir, which opens by three arches into the nave, of which the pointed stone vault is the wid- est in Christendom (73 feet). Among its interior decorations is a retalile which is the work of the Val- encian silversmith Peter Bernec. It is divided into three tiers of statuettes and reliefs, framed in canopied niches of east and hammered silver. A gold and silver alt;ir-frontal was carried off by the French in ISO!). The catlic(lral contains the tombs of Raymond Bcren- ger atid his wife. The Collegiate Church of San Feliii is also arcliitecturally noteworthy. Its style is four- teenth-century Gothic, the facade dating from the eighteenth, and it is one of the few Spanish churches

which possesses a genuine spire. It contains, besides the sepulchre of its patron and the tomb of the valiant Alvarez, a chapel dedicated to St. Narcissus, who ac- cording to tradition was one of the early bishops of the see. The Benedictine church of San Pedro de los Gallos is in Romanest^ue style of an early date. The present bishop Francisco Pol y Baralt was born at Arenas de Mar in the Diocese of Gerona, 9 June, 1854. The diocese contains 373 parishes, 780 priests, 325,000 Catholics. The Capuchins have a monastery at Olot, and among the cloisters for women in the diocese are those of the Franciscan, the Augustinian, and the Capuchin nuns.

Blanche M. Kelly.

Gerrha, a titular see in the province of Augustam- nica Prima, suffragan of Pelusium in the Patriarchate of Alexandria. The city is mentioned by Plinv (Hist. Nat., VI, 29). Erastosthenes (46, 10) asserts that the district was formerly under water. Strabo (XVI, 2, 33) places Gerrha lietween Pelusium and Mt. Cassias. Finally, in the sixth century the geographer Hierocles (.Synecdemus, n. 698) speaks of it as being in Augus- tamnioa. Lequien (Oriens christ., II, 551) makes knov\-n the names of four bishops of the see: Eudsemon, Pirosus, and Nilanmon, at the end of the fourth century, and at the beginning of the fifth; Stephen, who in 451 assisted at the Council of Chalcedon. Marshes have encroached upon the land in modern times; the abandoned city is found north of Pelusium on the road to El-Arish.

S. Vailhe.

Gersen, Giovanni. See Thom.\s a Kempis.

Gerson, Jean le Charlier de, the surname being the name of his native place, b. in the hamlet of Gerson 14 December, 1363; d. at Lyons, 12 July, 1429. The hamlet of Gerson has disappeared, but it was then a dependency of the village of Barby not far from Rethel, in the Diocese of Reims, and now included in the department of Ardennes. His father, Arnauld, and his mother, Elizabeth La Chardeniere, were noted for their integrity and piety. They had tweUe children, of whom Jean was the eldest. He attended the schools of Rethel and Reims and at the age of fourteen entered the famous College de Navarre at Paris, where he formed a life-long friendship with the rector, the illustrious Pierre d'Ailly of Compiegne. In 1381 Gerson obtained the degree of licentiate of arts under Maitre Jean Loutrier; in 1388 he received that of Baccalarius Biblicus; in 1390 he lectured on the "Sententise", and in 1392 became a licentiate of the- ology. He was raised to the doctorate of theology in 1394, being then thirty-one years of age (cf. Denifle, Chartul. Univers. Paris, III). Before receiving the doctorate he had written several works. In 1387 he preached before Pope Clement VII of Avignon \\-ith a view to calling forth the condemnation of Jean de Monteson, a Dominican, who had denied the Immac- ulate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and shortly afterwards he delivered a panegyric on St. Louis, Kingof France, thus making his debut in the oratorical career that was destined to become so brilliant.

Although Gerson had won the doctorate only a year before his former teacher. Pierre d'Ailly, was named Bishop of Puy (1395), Benedict XIII chose him to svicceed d'Ailly in the important position of Chancellor of Notre-Danie and of the imi\ersity (13 April). Thenceforth he was actively interested in the extirpation of the schism which, for seventeen years, had divided the ('liurcli iiilo two hostile parties that were niunerically almost equal. The friend of peace and union, he :ilways exprcs.sed a .sober and moderate opinion in regard to both the Pope of Rome and the Pope of Avignon, and on all occasions showed a strong repugnance to the violent proceedings extolled by certain members of the university (Noel \'alois.